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I'm about to cry, I just wrote a long post and lost everything. I'm going to summarize and will tell the whole story(again!) if I get enough interest. Feel free to ask questions.

I feel like I'm running out of oxygen. I love my husband to death but I'm not sexually attracted to him at all. For years I've felt the need to be controlled, spanked, punished and fucked without mercy and my husband has no interest. I feel like this is my cry for help but what can anyone possibly do to help?

My husband has occasionally been 'dominant' in the bedroom but its a far cry from what I need. Any other mention I've given him of wanting more is either laughed off or ignored. He has no interest in pursuing anything farther than we already have(which isn't much) and has even told me that sometimes he wants me to take control in the bedroom. It makes me feel very uncomfortable and I freeze up, I hate it!

I've tried my best to let my urges go but they keep coming back stronger. I'm miserable I don't know what to do. We have two children together and our relationship isn't technically bad, just unsatisfying and it leaves a piece of me left needing more. Please, can somebody, anybody help or offer advice?

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First, have you told him the degree to which this effects you? It seems sensible that if it is hurting you this much, he would be interested at least to make you feel better. That's the first step, if you have only shown the interest but not that it feels so bad to be missing it, or how depressed you feel.

If it helps, there is a post in the FAQ to encourage a vanilla partner to try BDSM, if you haven't seen it yet. But if he's fully vanilla or likes femdom, it might not help. Still, it might be a nice read.

Then, the only real advice I can give you (so far) is to go to counselling, or maybe a sex therapist, and either way to make it someone who is kink aware (there's a directory here. Sexual incompatibility and not seeing eye to eye on resolving it aren't great signs, and kids are no reason to ignore problems in a marriage.

I'm sure everyone else here will have more advice, and I will after we know more, especially if you rewrite the long post.

And honestly, even though you love him and say the relationship isn't bad, you did call it loveless. That sounds like there's something that needs to be addressed with at least him.

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I haven't mentioned the depth of my fantasies because even the mention of anything hardcore turns him off. He has a high sex drive but 95% of it is vanilla and very boring. If we're browsing online or on tv and see something even semi-hardcore he just shakes his head and makes a sarcastic joke about it. I didn't want to lay everything out on the table per-say and have him think I'm a total lunatic. Is that wrong? I don't know know anymore.

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That does sound like a very unhappy situation...I'm so sorry.

What you don't mention is anything about your husband's personality. OK, he's vanilla sexually speaking, but is he the kind of person who is normally sensitive to how other people around him are feeling?

The reason I'm asking this is because the ideal situation would be for him to come to understand how deeply you're feeling about this, and for him to consider meeting you half way in fixing it. But if he's the insensitive type then maybe that's simply not going to happen.

I have to say, the first thought that pops into my mind would be for you both to consider couples therapy.

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LP: Well, from what you've said, you have a couple options:

1) Keep going as you are. This is gonna result in you becoming more miserable. Eventually you're gonna cheat or he is and the relationship will probably collapse.
2) You can divorce him and see the satisfying relationship you crave as a submissive.
3) You can sit down with him and have a painful conversation about how deeply frustrated and unhappy you are, how badly you want to make things work, and what he needs to do to give the relationship a chance to work. Given how broken things seem to be, this option probably involves marriage counseling, ideally with a kink-aware therapist (by 'kink-aware' we mean someone who won't assume that the root of the problem is your desire to be submissive).

As you can see, option 3 is really the only one that has a chance of keeping your marriage intact long-term. So that's what I think you should do. It doesn't guarantee that you can fix the problems, but it's the only option that offers any practical hope.

Your husband's opposition to BDSM might be rooted in a couple things.

A) He might be totally vanilla, with no interest in being dominant at all. If that's genuinely the case, he's never going to be able to meet your needs. Perhaps he might agree to let you serve another master, but that would probably take more trust and open communication than you seem to have right now.
B) He might believe that kink is either fundamentally immoral or a sign of mental illness. If that's the case, the problem might be solvable through communication and education. He may simply not understand what you're asking him to do and why. Perhaps he has religious objections to it (in which case you might be able to emphasize all the Biblical passages that support a woman being submissive).
C) He might be a decent vanilla guy who thinks that BDSM is a form of domestic violence or abuse. If this is the case, like B, he might become more open to it when he understands that BDSM and abuse are different things. But that takes education and communication.
D) He might be scared of being dominant. He might feel he doesn't have the ability to it effectively, that he'll look foolish or incompetent. Like a lot of guys, he might be resisting it because he doesn't know how to do it. That can be addressed through communication and you being patient and encouraging.
E) He might be submissive at heart. You've hinted he might be, but if he were submissive, I would expect that he would not so negative about BDSM in general. But maybe E is combined with B or C.

So communication is critical here. It's the only way to find out why he's opposed to meeting your needs.

Having said all that, if he's really as resistant to doing what you want as your post seems to suggest, I'm not sure that any amount of talk is going to get things moving in the right direction. You might be better off just going for option 2. But give option 3 a chance. Put it all out on the table and see if you get anything positive or helpful. Don't wait forever though. Give yourself a deadline--if talking doesn't seem to be getting anywhere after 6 months, start seriously looking at option 2.

Last edited: Nov 1, 2012

"We hurt the ones we love the most. It's a subtle form of compliment."